Twelve Anti-Family Gifts from Congress

As Congress wraps up its final business for the year, there are at least a dozen detrimental policies included in the omnibus spending bill recently signed into law by the President. Taken as a whole, these policies devalue human life, weaken civil society, and undermine the family. Unfortunately, these provisions have largely gone unnoticed by the general public.

The Dirty Dozen
The Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed by Congress includes a slew of offensive items:

1. Elimination of abstinence education. Despite polling showing the vast majority of parents want their children to be taught that abstinence is best, the omnibus defunds the abstinence-based education program. In its place Congress creates another condom-based sex education program.

2. Spreading the wealth. The omnibus bill, as well as the other appropriation measures that have passed this year, represent a fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to “spread the wealth.” His 2010 budget reflects a 30 percent increase over President Bush’s last year in office on means-tested welfare programs such as housing, food stamps, and health care. Unfortunately, these programs do little or nothing to help recipients move off of the welfare rolls and into jobs where they can achieve independence and provide for their families.

3. Needle exchange. Tucked into the health portion of the bill is an allowance of federal taxpayer funds to be used for needle exchange programs whereby drug addicts can get new needles for turning in used needles. Ostensibly to prevent the spread of infection, these programs settle for “harm reduction” rather than overcoming drug addiction. The provision does allow local health agencies and local law enforcement to “opt-out.”

4. Planned Parenthood funding. Despite the country’s towering deficit, the omnibus bill boosts Title X family planning funding by $10 million to $315.5 million. The largest recipient of Title X funds is Planned Parenthood.

5. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Despite its stated mission to “ensure that every pregnancy is wanted,” the UNFPA would receive $5 million more from U.S. taxpayers to, among other things, support China’s mandatory one-child policy, under which millions of wanted pregnancies have been ended.

6. International family planning. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama rescinded the “Mexico City policy,” which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortion overseas. The omnibus bills would give these groups an additional $103 million.

7. Limiting free speech. The omnibus bill drops a ban on federal funds being used to enforce or implement the “Fairness Doctrine.” This policy would have the effect of shutting down conservative talk radio programs.

The section of the bill that funds the District of Columbia includes these disturbing provisions:

8. Ending the D.C. Scholarship Program. For five years, thousands of D.C. families have been able to send their children to safe and effective private schools. But the omnibus bill allows no new entrants into the program–despite a 2009 Department of Education report showing a statistically significant increase in reading scores for scholarship students.

9. Public funding of abortion. The bill lifts a ban on D.C. using local funds to promote and fund abortions for District residents.

10. Taxpayer-financed domestic partner benefits. The bill lifts a longstanding ban on the use of federal taxpayer funds to pay for health care benefits for domestic partners of D.C. employees. Federal funds would also now be used for domestic partnership registration.

11. Legalized medical marijuana. The bill gives D.C. the ability to use local funds to start and implement a medical marijuana program. This comes at a time when, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles is attempting to reel in its program. Medical marijuana dispensaries have become one of the fastest-growing industries in the city, with some 1,000 dispensaries cropping up since 2004.

12. Needle exchange for drug abusers. A decade-long ban is lifted in the bill to allow D.C. to use local funds to run a needle exchange program for drug addicts. Unfortunately, a provision keeping these programs from within 1,000 feet of any school, day care, or youth center was stripped out in the final bill.

Unwelcome Christmas Gifts
The Christmas season is a time when Americans celebrate life, family, and community. Unfortunately, the 12 unwelcome Christmas gifts in the omnibus bill, signed into law by President Obama last week, undermine these pillars of American civil society.

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Numbers 3 and 12 are actually positive moves towards improving the way we help drug addicts on the road to getting off the streets.

Current tactics that aim to simply imprison addicts, regardless of your view on whether or not it's the "right" thing to do, simply do not work. Addicts just wait until they get out of jail and go back to using drugs-that's why we call it an "addiction."

If the Heritage Foundation is in favor of simply locking up everyone who does drugs, I should hope they also support the massive amount of government spending required to house these often nonviolent offenders, as well as the cost to the judicial system to try these repeat offenders.

Exchange programs are remarkably cost effective ways to not only prevent the spread of dangerous diseases like AIDS, but they also connect addicts with private organizations dedicated to helping those who want to get off of drugs do so.

Federal funding may not be the best way to solve the problem, but if we're already spending money to fight a ridiculous "war on drugs," we might as well spend it where it actually works.

Oh, and the "1000 foot rule" mentioned in #12 was not a measure included to protect children, as the blogger should know, it was included to make needle exchange programs de facto illegal, since there are VERY few places in DC that are not within such boundaries…not including such a fact is, by the way, pretty disingenuous.

It took a Republican president and the Civil War to end slavery in the united stats, It seem that the Democrats are going to retain their life long goal of bringing it back. I hope you find this offensive, I do.

2009 was supposed to bring hope and change, but has brought nothing but staggering debt, empty promises, and corruption on a scale never seen before. Health care "reform" has been conducted behind closed doors, forced through two houses of congress, and will forever change the relationship between citizen-state.

I never heard that the democrats were trying to bring pre-Civil War slavery back. This is ridiculous. It is republicans and right-wing extremists who want 19th century morals and codes of conduct.

I appreciate point 11. Also the guy who wrote in about points 3 and 12 regarding the treatment of street drug addicts.

All-in-all, this is good legislation and a good-faith attempt to implement 'change we need' in a country where the conservative party is filibustering and blocking everything the progressive party wants to achieve. Being a democracy, then, things will take a long time as they grind each side down and fight out every point and sub-point.

I wish our leaders and lawmakers weren't wasting so much time and money playing games.

What say we do it this way–every druggie arrested be locked in a room with a months supply of his favorite drug of choice–the paraphnelia to administer the drugs and let 'em overdose their sorry a**es into oblivion–relieves them of their terribly tortuous addiction and saves the taxpayers a bundle–we're rid of the feeble-minded scum—amen!

This is more of a question than a comment–I would like to know (Ask Heritage?) how much we Americans are paying for the health insurance of our senators and representatives (and many other officials (czars??!). It's easy to understand how they can so carelessly destroy our private sector insurance and our quality of health care when they will not have to be part of this destruction and loss. Not only will our health care costs rise and our care be diminished, we will STILL have to pay for their very expensive coverage. Please respond with this information. Christine Bridgens

1. Elimination of abstinence education. = Elimination of personal responsibility and accommodations of government funded abortions. Sex education should not be a teaching or influence of preferential sex.

2. Spreading the wealth. Going on since welfare started. More so now as people are getting houses and boats, food and living expenses, medical, dental, education. the skies the limit. No one irresponsible is held accountable! Anymore!

3. Needle exchange. insurance companies charge diabetics full price while government gives the same ones away for free to drug addicts, since at least ’92, in this state and without an exchange!

4. Planned Parenthood funding. Sorry. Personal will, self control, proper protection, there are ways to prevent and reasons for the individual to take responsibility for their actions. One reason, it is all within their individual control. Not taxpayers.

5. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Would this “one child” policy apply to all people of all races and all cultures? How about holding people accountable at their expense, for what is rightly theirs and that being the children their actions bring into the world? Get rid of the government programs so people make responsible choices.

6. International family planning. Sorry, again, teach personal responsibility. The teachings of the man Jesus Christ, who wasn’t born white, is a great way to teach all people of all skin colors, equally personal responsibility.

7. Limiting free speech. If the truth wasn’t known, this wouldn’t be considered. Obama speaks of “just words” then turns around to limit them? A man of strength, lets words of untruths roll off his back or comes to the forefront to explain, the guilty and weak, gets rid of those words of truth and the people that say them.

8. Ending the D.C. scholarship opportunity. More proof everything about this administration is phony. They’re taking the minds of children! The only potential children will have is what the government allows… any incentive will be government driven.

9. Public funding of abortion. for some reason, Obama and his administration has no respect for human life. Or personal responsibility. They completely ignore the peoples disapproval.

10. Taxpayer-financed domestic partner benefits. Sure are helping out special interests alot more then America as a people united. Special interest should be eliminated before the benefits to all, like police, fire fighters, military, etc!

11. Legalized medical marijuana. I wonder how much goes to an actual cause, as run by government? How much may be illegally sold through the dispensaries?

12. Needle exchange for drug abusers. This is wrong. Insurance companies have been charging diabetics the whole cost out of pocket, claiming it’s not a prescription, even though it’s a means to administer. While the government, since found out in ’92, in this state, gives them away for free to drug addicts!

you conservatives are embarrasing at best. your not gonna win. stop trying. nobody wants your way of thought put into law. stop. seriously, your done. get over it and move on. geez, if you wanna compare anything to anything, compare forcing someone to practice not having sex which has always worked soo well. you guys are like i said…embarrasing. wow.

That's alright, it's been understood for a while, the majority and of good, but unexpected reasons, have fallen prey of a mental deficiency that prohibits the ability to think freely. It is a dangerous sickness that also dilutes the ability to reason. Therefore coward to the free thinking of sound and accurate judgement and reasoning. Spewing out the same old narrow minded, conditioned thinking.

Here Zippy, maybe these questions will help: A drug addict "shoots up" drugs to alter everything about himself, all within his choice of lifestyle and decision making, is a burden to society and with government (taxpaid) accommodations, a financial one too. A non-preventative diabetic "shoots up" insulin, a necessary hormone the human body needs to survive. Who is not a burden to society and who's lifestyle and decision making is disciplined to the necessary maintenance of the disease.

Why would government encourage drug addicts, if not for another future crisis? To be a drug addict is by choice. Type 1 diabetes, the cause is unknown. Yet government has tax payers paying for expenses and consequences of other peoples personal choices!??

Who has more life potential? Which owes society more? Or using your mentality, who does society owe more to?

The government is truly seeing people unfairly inferior mocking the people that want to live free and independently. Unconstitutional for tax payers to pay the expenses of personal lifestyles or accountabilities. Hope to read from you, Zippy!

While we are getting upset about the changes in government, we need to remember that we the voters failed to do our research into this candidate and blindly accepted what we heard in the national media, airheads interviewing airheads. We did it to ourselves folks! What did we think he meant when he said he was going to change the way we did government, and what he meant by the open ended word "Change." Duhh

All of this is so heart breaking. Where are these idiots taking our COUNTRY? I did not vote for bho. Where are the people with values who did vote for him? Its not enough that his approval ratings are dropping they should totally tank. These marxists are taking us apart piece by piece. This government is going to collapse under its own weight. Pray the fall isn't going to kill us. I believe WE THE PEOPLE CAN AND WILL TAKE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! The problem is how long is it going to take to repair our republic? Pray everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hope and change" I hope the change brought on by obama and company will not be the end of this great country as we know it. WE MUST VOTE IN 2010 TO STOP THIS MADNESS. POWER AND CONTROLL BY A FEW IS WAHT IS WANTED, THE GOOG OD THE PEOPLE MEAN NOTHING.

We have slowly let the environmentalists and every special interest get their way in congress. No longer do those in Washington follow the will of the people. It is time to stand up for the good of the whole country not just some fat cat that can toss a lot of money around. I am tried of the politicians who think we are buying into all of this and telling us this is what Americans want.

Here is what I want, freedom, education for our children, and the right for life. Education for the drug addicts not some program that keeps them on drugs. I would like to see people get high on life not drugs. Drugs are a cop out it is hiding from reality.

Lets get back this country to the way it use to be, the original plan the Founding Fathers had for us. It is all there in the Constitution, it still applies today, no matter how long ago it was. Those of us who believe in our freedoms will always fight for that right.

those of us who believe in our freedom will always fight .. how many more people will open

their eyes before 2010 and decide this is not working. Will it take a complete welfare shut down,or when the promised things to the freeloaders are no longering coming in, is this what it would take for them to stand up and understand that this change is not working. Why is it so many feel it is okay to distrubute our back paining effort to make money for a life, for me and my family. What in the world makes it okay to steal from your neighbor? ANYWHERE?

Why worry? Progressives know what is best for you. Better medicine for what ails America. The snake oil has been sold by the Yes We Con-artist. It is now going to be forced down your throat just as the health care bill has been forced through congress by the most corrupt people to ever hold office. Their cesspool overfloweth. Only way out, is to vote them out… Hey zippy; forced abstinence? Spare me. As you are aware, there is no such thing. However, forced population control around the world through abortion is real, and now funded by American tax dollars. More proof that Progressives are really Regressives when it comes to human freedom and liberty. They continue to progress towards tyranny with complete control of populations by crushing individualism. Zippy, if you know the history of the founding of America government, you would know that the founders, who knew very well the history of past governments, sought to bring individual liberty by limiting the ability of a government to control the will of the people. Look at what is happening today with this so-called progressive leadership. Don't question them and don't worry, just be happy and all will be taken care of… right zippy? duh?

The Democrats are out to destroy the basic American Market system, the individual and their families. The 12 provisions is clear proof that they want most individual disfunctional and not self sufficient. They want Americans to be dumb drug addicts with no family ties so they can control the masses and be the ruling class forever.

2010 cannot come soon enough. Go to the polls in 2010 and seek out someone to go with you who wouldn't normally vote. This is our only hope to take back the House & Senate to limit the damage this Congress & President is inflicting on this country.

Vote Straight Party Ticket. We've got more conservatives than liberals and have to get more people out to vote than the Democrats can stuff the ballot boxes with illegal votes!

#2 and 13 are good things, illegal drug overdoses kill about 15,000 every year in the USA, while legal prescription drugs kill around 400,000 every year in the US.

Make drugs legal, let the junkies get high, yes there may be a slight increase in new addicts to begin with, but it will level out and start to decline soon enough.

The war on drugs isn't about stopping drugs or people using drugs, it's about funding police states, prisons, guards, unions, etc. it's the money stupid, and now that one side has the money, do you think they will let it go without a fight?

Behold the cruelty of liberalism. Their idea of compassion is to insure that the drug addict remains in his or her living hell for as long as possible. By providing the tools needed to the addict to maintain their chemical prison that is hell. This is the utopian society that liberals are offering. I guess they choose to exist in hell. Freedom just confuses and scares them. With far too many choices and the terror of being responsible for the choices they make. It's much easier for them to just be told what to think, say, and do on a daily basis without care or question.

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

-Abraham Lincoln U.S. President.

So this is what you call "leadership for America?" Censoring my posts you don't agree with, even though they conform to your own policy?

Comments are subject to approval and moderation. Commenting is a privilege, not a right.

(Apparently the real meaning of this is ‘we don't allow the truth if we don’t like what we hear?) Uh, how Christian and Family friendly is that? Jesus taught us to alleviate suffering, love thy neighbor, and tell the truth – where did you stray from Real American Values, said so well by Lincoln above? You know we are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands due to Prohibition II?

Cannabis never killed, but cannabis prohibition has – there is something inherently un-American and anti-family going on here.

You see Cannabis is not toxic, never ever killed or harmed anyone (as long as you don’t read the last 40 years of lies, half truths, distortions, and junk science sanctioned by OUR OWN GOVERNMENT, perpetrated on us to keep Oil, Textiles, Pharmaceutical, petroleum plastic manufacturer, and paper mill companies in the $ – they dictate what you should know, and what you should buy.

Bet you didn’t know that OVER HALF OF THE MEDICINE PRIOR TO 1940 were cannabis and hash preparations, and they worked, and they still work. BUT YOU CAN’T PATENT A PLANT THAT I CAN GROW HERE AT HOME – are you smelling anything fishy yet or are you so brainwashed that the truth is implausible to you.

Please brother, help right the wrong that has been perpetrated on us ALL. Ever have a relative die from MS, Parkinson’s, cancer; sufferer from depression, anxiety, PTSD like our soldiers? Please, in the name of Jesus, stop Prohibition II before more young men die from PTSD. They kill themselves once home at a rate of about 500 per month for the last few years, more soldiers have died from their own hand and “assisted” by the Military, than by the “enemy.”

Are you mad yet?

Pollution began in earnest after the complete destruction of the competition – Hemp – Is that what Conservatives do, screw and entire nation, take a plant that has never killed, and help millions, makes clothes, food, paper (sustainable paper, too, 1 acre hemp = 4 acres of trees)

Please keep it clean and stay on topic. Personal attacks and obscene language will not be tolerated (clean language in my post).

Essentially, don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to your mother at the dinner table. (Mom would ‘slap you silly’ for spreading lies, hate, and blocking Americans from getting health care, AND preventing the only non-toxic medicine in existence from reaching millions of people —

a real miracle plant, a true gift from God, if you bother to read the truth)

Thank you! Real Discussion, based on real facts, is VERY American and Famil-friendly.

It's important to know the history and men behind such an un-American lie as Hemp prohibition.

Cannabis is Medicine, PERIOD!

The actual story behind the 1937 legislature passed tax against marijuana is quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes and an expert on the “hemp conspiracy,” the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and many other influential industrial leaders such as William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon.

Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decorticator machine was invented. With this invention, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries almost instantaneously.

According to Popular Mechanics, “10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land.” William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage, land best suited for conventional pulp, so his interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained.

Competition from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests popularizing the term “marijuana” was a strategy Hearst used in order to create fear in the American public. “The first step in creating hysteria was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before… ‘Marijuana’” (ibid).

DuPont’s involvement in the anti-hemp campaign can also be explained with great ease. At this time, DuPont was patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. “According to the company’s own records, wood-pulp products ultimately accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont’s railroad car loadings for the next 50 years” (ibid). Indeed it should be noted that “two years before the prohibitive hemp tax in 1937, DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber, nylon, which was an ideal substitute for hemp rope” (Hartsell). The year after the tax was passed DuPont came out with rayon, which would have been unable to compete with the strength of hemp fiber or its economical process of manufacturing. “DuPont’s point man was none other than Harry Anslinger… who was appointed to the FBN by Treasury Secretary Andrew MEllon, who was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, DuPont’s chief financial backer. Anslinger’s relationship to Mellon wasn’t just political, he was also married to Mellon’s niece” (Hartsell). It doesn’t take much to draw a connection between DuPont, Anslinger, and Mellon, and it’s obvious that all of these groups, including Hearst, had strong motivation to prevent the growth of the hemp industry.

Hemp truth (clever name) I have seen a person come very close to destroying his life because of his addition to marijuana. Smoking it was his breakfast, lunch and dinner and the snacks in between those meals. The first thing he did after waking up was take a hit on his bong. I'm his wife and by the grace of God, it was taken out of his life and mine because it affects all who know that person.

We are to take responsibility for ourselves and not to depend on a drug.

A R A Orlando – Appreciate your personal anecdote, however, your "blame" for your partner's issues is misguided. There is no addiction with cannabis, Alcohol, nicotine, Twinkies, all addictive and deadly, Cannabis, non-addictive.

Read up on Dual-diagnosis in Chemical Dependency, and then tell me what disorder he was trying self-medicate – sorry pulling rank here, my masters and doctoral work are in Chemical dependency, and my life’s work has been in medicine. I know exactly what I am talking about, and where to direct you to learn more about it.

One must read the TRUTH above. Yeah, clever name – but, people are suffering, this is serious – you know our troops are killing themselves faster than the enemy by a margin of 2:1 – Proud? And meddling in something one obviously has little if any facts about, causing the deprivation of safe and effective treatments with cannabis for our troops, me, and others –helps to illegally withhold critical medicine that works, without addiction like Xanax, and without the fear of overdose. That is VERY American and Family Friendly.

Just Google PTSD and cannabis (Israel uses it for its soldiers because nothing else works like it.) and get some real information by the New England Journal of Medicine or Journal of Neurology – you believe everything else they say about drugs, so why does everyone lose their minds when it comes to their research on the only non-toxic medicine known to humankind?

I owe my life to cannabis medicine for PTSD, and the continued spreading of the lies formulated by the men described above is perplexing – we all have been lied to by industry and government, remember American history?! Jesus taught us to not lie, love others as ourselves, and alleviate suffering, WHY oh WHY do so many participate in such destructive behavior after all the legitimate research available for te past 100 years – I have led you here, please "drink!"

You know, how would you feel if they illegalized the medicine you need to live. We should all remember that when we are pouring opiate-laced cough syrup down our kids’ throats.

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